Milton Mamet, Superhero
by Mela Sunstrong
Summary: In Woodbury's hour of need, a hero arises in the unlikely form of its resident scientist. Milton Mamet has to step up, mete out nerdy justice, and ultimately face down his arch-nemesis, the Governor, in order to keep the world - nay, Georgia - nay, mostly just Woodbury, safe from harm.


_Being quite upset over the demise of Milton, I've decided the best way of dealing with it is with humor. Also the eating of copious amounts of chocolate, but writing silly stories works too. This should come out to three chapters in all._

* * *

"If you stay, you can't keep looking the other way." With those words and a kiss on the cheek, Andrea was gone, and Milton knew what he had to do. He would have to call on strength he never knew he had. He would have to face unimaginable dangers and overcome staggering odds. Most difficult of all, he'd have to come up with a cool name for himself, because he was about to become a vigilante.

And so the Duct Tape Desperado was born.

Actually, the birth of Milton-as-hero was a rather more involved affair, but it was a start. He was supposed to be finishing up the Governor's war plans, but it was difficult to concentrate with his new vocation on his mind. Lists of new recruits and their abilities wound up a little bit confused as a result. Fifteen-year-old Lacey Weaver was listed as having seventeen years worth of experience with a rifle. The chronically depressed Mr. Loffler suddenly attained excellent leadership capabilities which probably belonged to someone else. Milton finally noticed that Stewart Jones, who was fit as a fiddle, was now saddled with a titanium hip and near blindness. Oh well, he thought, he could sort it all out later; he had a town to save.

He was about to retire to his lab/lair/secret hideout when he saw the Governor emerge from a nearby storefront. Judging by the grim look on his face, either the hot water in his apartment wasn't working again, or he'd just discovered Andrea's escape. He caught his eye, and Milton obediently fell into step beside him, a habit which was going to have to break sooner or later. He could hardly be following his arch-nemesis around like a lost puppy dog all the time, it just wasn't dignified.

"Have you seen her?" The Governor asked.

"Um, have I seen who?" Milton returned nervously.

"Andrea."

"She's...out on a run?"

"Are you being smart with me?"

"Isn't that my job?"

"Milton," Philip said, "Stop answering all my questions with questions."

"Sorry. So, she's gone?" Milton wilted under the glare he received.

The Governor stopped walking. "Look, I want a specific answer to a specific question. Did you see her, did you talk to her at all?"

Milton gulped. He was a terrible liar. "No..." A weak 'no'. A wimpy, non-heroic pair of letters that didn't stand a chance.

"You did. You knew she was leaving, didn't you?"

"She told me," Milton squeaked.

The Governor seized him by the lapels and backed him up against a decorative railing. "What else did you two talk about, huh? Did you tell her about the deal? Did you tell her about Michonne?"

Milton knew that this was a very compromising situation for a vigilante to be in. _Come on, look him in the eye_, he urged himself,_ you've got him outnumbered two to one!_ He did manage to do it, but it wasn't exactly a look that oozed steely resolution. It was more of a 'for-the-love-of-God-please-don't-hurt-me' kind of look.

Meanwhile, the Governor continued to shake his mild-mannered assistant the way one does with a carton of orange juice before opening, and for much the same reason. "She knows, doesn't she?" he asked. After receiving nothing but cowed silence in reply, he let go and strode off. "I'm going after her."

The Duct Tape Desperado shakily straightened out his clothes. He took out his notebook and jotted down on his to-do list:

1. Finish laundry

2. Practice lying

3. Practice steely gaze

His encounter with the Governor had revealed a certain amount of room for improvement, that much was true, but it wasn't a total loss. At least he'd manage to pickpocket the man's car keys. He slipped them into his own pocket and continued on his way, scribbling down notes as he went. A plan was beginning to take shape.

* * *

_Swoosh swish swish_

The cape was a volumous one, made out of countless strips of duct tape stuck over a canvas lining. It swished against the ground wherever Milton went. Coupled with his biter-proof jacket, it made him look cool. It was shiny. Yes, it was also heavy and cumbersome, but he wasn't going to let that beat him. The Desperado swooshed onwards, down the darkened streets of Woodbury, towards the wall, clutching a thermos to his chest.

Two men were on guard at the moment, each sitting with his gun in his lap, idly gazing out at the floodlit road below. Milton climbed up to them, offering a nervous smile. "Slow night?"

One of the men stood up and stretched. The other regarded him suspiciously. Most Woodbury residents weren't supposed to be out after dark, save for those on guard duty. Milton was an exception, as he was often puttering away on experiments late into the night, but what business did he have on the wall? "What the hell you wearin'?" he asked.

Milton wrangled his duct tape cloak into position. "Uh, just testing it out, really, it's a thing I've been working on, it's, well, it's awfully cold out, and I thought that a nice hot cup of tea would go over well with you boys." He held up the thermos and a pair of styrofoam cups.

The guard relaxed. "Oh, thanks, man. That's really cool of you."

Milton tipped his head in acknowledgement as he poured them two cups of steaming tea, specially laced with sleeping drugs. "It's just my little way of contributing, what with all the trouble we've been having."

"Yeah, it's been pretty crazy," the guard said as he and his companion accepted their drinks.

Milton tapped his fingers against the empty thermos, looking out into the night, waiting impatiently for the men to get through with blowing on their tea and start drinking. He needed to get a car out this gate. "So, he's not back yet," he said, meaning the Governor. Missing car keys didn't stop him from leaving, it only meant that he had to take up the hunt in the town ice cream truck instead. He left Woodbury accompanied by a merry, music-box version of The Entertainer tinkling from the speakers. The noise might give Andrea an advantage, Milton thought, so long as she wasn't in the mood for a Choco Taco.

The guards suddenly got up and started to leave. "Wait, where are you going?" Milton asked them.

"It's the end of our shift," one of them replied. "Martinez is on next."

Milton watched in despair as the two guards climbed down from the wall, taking their drugged drinks with them. "You mean you're not going to stay_ here_ and drink tea?" He called after them.

"Nah, thanks for coming out, though! Goodnight." After the guards turned in, they had the best night's sleep they'd ever had, only not quite where the tape-covered vigilante wanted them to have it. Instead, Martinez took their place on the wall, and Milton didn't have any tea left to give him, supposing he'd even want to drink it in the first place.

Martinez didn't seem to be in the mood for company, either. "Shouldn't you be messing around with test tubes somewhere?" he asked.

Milton shuffled his feet helplessly. "Yes, sorry, I was just leaving. Er, you've got a biter out there, you know." Martinez turned to take care the biter that had shuffled into view, presenting him with the back of his head. Milton hesitated briefly before clobbering that head with his thermos, and the man dropped into an unconscious heap on the walkway.

Milton was taken aback for a minute. He didn't have a violent bone in his body. He'd never hurt anyone before, let alone left someone lying spark out in a puddle of their own drool. "Sorry," he winced, as he reached over Martinez's prone form to take his gun.

He drove the Governor's truck through the gate and closed it behind him. On returning to the truck, he closed the door on the end of his tape cape several times before giving up and driving off with one corner flapping on the outside. This was it, he thought, as he drove the nine miles it took to get to the pits. There was no turning back now, short of sneaking back into town with the explanation that he'd 'just decided' to take the Governor's truck for a joyride.

There was a biter wandering around loose near the pits when he pulled up. Normally it would've eventually fallen in with the rest of the biters, but his arrival distracted it, and now it was heading towards the car instead. Milton reached for Martinez's gun and turned it over few times before working out where the safety was. He might be able to quote the periodic table of the elements from heart, and he knew what words like 'hallux' and 'expiscate' meant, but his understanding of fire-arms was rudimentary at best. Meanwhile, the biter closed distance and smacked itself up against the driver side window, growling.

Milton would've liked to scooch over and get out the passenger side, but his cape was still stuck, and he didn't want to take it off. He steeled himself and opened the door as forcefully as he could, knocking the biter over before he jumped out to deal with it. His first shot only clipped its chin and passed through the neck, and the report startled him so badly he dropped the gun. Milton hurried to pick it up as the biter hurried to regain its feet. His aim improved drastically at point blank range, and he was able to hit it in the head the second time around.

If he didn't know any better, he could've sworn that the biters loaded in the trailer were laughing at him.

Nevertheless, Milton pressed on with the plan. He tipped the dead biter into the pit, then drenched the occupants with the gasoline he'd stashed in the back of the truck. He did the same with the biters in the trailer, then followed it all up with a few bottles of barbeque sauce for good measure. He took a lighter to the first of his home-made torches and tossed it at the trailer, producing an instant inferno. A second fire soon sprang to life in the pit.

The newborn vigilante took a moment to admire his handiwork. True, not everything had gone entirely according to his itinerary, but he had ultimately succeeded in his task. Perhaps he was cut out for this, after all. With interest, Milton edged closer to the pit. He'd never had the chance to experiment with setting biters on fire; the Governor always had some silly qualm or another about burning half the town down. He took out his notebook and started jotting down observations.

The scent of victory was a mouthwatering one, not unlike roast pork. There was something about it that seemed a little off, though, something past the Hunt's Sweet'n'Smokey, something that smacked of carcinogen. It took a moment for Milton to place it; his duct tape cape was on fire. "No, no, stop it! That's not supposed to happen! Help!"

He twisted around and tried to stomp out the blaze on the end of the cape, but only succeeded in scorching a pant leg. He switched to grappling with the neck loop, which was made of a length of twisted tape with each end firmly plastered onto the cape to hold it in place. At the same time, he shuffled forward and bent over backward in an attempt to keep the fire away from the rest of him, which made him look very like a limbo dancer.

Milton had to resort to using the truck's ignition key to saw through the loop, as it was sticky and too small to fit over his head. With the fire creeping ever closer to his person, specifically his bottom, he finally managed to free himself, and he threw off his symbol of justice with more than a little relief. He kicked the smoldering remains into the pit, hopefully destroying the evidence.

Wearily, the Duct Tape Desperado returned to the truck and started the drive home. It had been a long and trying night, and he looked forward to a hot shower and a cup of tea before getting some richly deserved sleep.

He was halfway to Woodbury when he slammed on the breaks. He just remembered, his notebook was still lying on the ground by the pits where he'd thrown it after catching fire. Milton took a deep breath and resisted the urge to bang his head against the wheel before turning the truck around.

Perhaps he _wasn't_ cut out for this after all.


End file.
